


And We Drown

by DoreyG



Category: Coriolanus - Shakespeare
Genre: (More dreamlike than graphic but I thought it best to warn), Admiration, Blurring Boundaries, Everything is a little dreamlike, Five Acts, Love/hate relationships, M/M, Trust Issues, Violence, envy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 17:06:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They started in violence, there’s no way to get away from that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And We Drown

It’s never easy between them.

They started in violence, there’s no way to get away from that. They were both born for war. Born and bred for it and he doesn’t have Coriolanus’ formidable mother but sometimes he thinks that’s the only difference between them. They are two sides of the same coin. And so it is fitting, _inevitable_ , that they should’ve merged together so even before they merged properly – fists in ribs and claws across skin and scars so deep that not all of them can be accounted entirely physical.

They plateaued in violence, there’s no way to get away from that either. After the initial violence came a deeper kind, an almost sweeter kind. He was expecting it to take time… No, he was expecting it to never even happen. Mild antagonism, budding friendship, perhaps a deeper bond that only two soldiers who have seen the glinting edge of death can form – not this, not for them to immediately crawl so deep inside each other that the only way to express it is the shatter of bones or the smell of dried blood. It was inevitable, perhaps, but he still wasn’t _expecting_ it.

He’s starting to expect that it’s going to end in violence, no matter no hard he tries to get away. Perhaps the sweet violence, or the bred violence, or a strange mixture of the both. He knows that nothing like this can ever end well – knows that when they’ve both clawed this deep the only way to get rid of the infection is to cut it out. All the poisonous trust, all the sweet violence, all the feelings too numerous to name – cut it out until there’s absolutely nothing left to harm him.

(Nothing left…

There will _always_ be something left to harm them.)

It starts with Coriolanus throwing him up against the wall, a physical fact. They haven’t even been arguing, this is just the way that they choose to relate. It passes for affection, almost, their brutal kind of love. The man crowds in closer, kisses him like they’re drowning. He bites like they’re coming back to life in return, earns a rumbled note of pleasure as he debates softly on just how to cut the poison out.

A knife, he decides, or the cold light of logic. But it is far too late to think about either right now. Coriolanus’ rumble turns into a growl – he lifts him up almost easily, the blades constantly between them the only things that stick. Turns him to the bed and throws him down so hard that bones rattle and scars become gloriously clear yet again. He bares his teeth in reply, trips his general down on top of him and relishes in the slam of muscle against muscle and knives digging into red hot knives.

Their clothes are a barrier - one cut far easier than the poison, one wriggled free from far quicker than the pinning knives. They like each other best when they’re naked, he has found. There are marks on his neck that Coriolanus revels in as he glories in the scratches upon Coriolanus’ chest, there are bruises on his ribs that Coriolanus traces over as he admires the scars on Coriolanus’ hips. There is a tangled world between them that only they can know and he crushes it on a breath and expects nothing else besides.

They fight for the top spot as they always do, never willing to let the other win. It’ll end in a violence like this – he thinks in fragmented notes as Coriolanus flips him and holds him with his muscular thighs – it’ll end like _this_ , neither one willing to lose and neither one willing to win… The thought shatters, drifts away on the breeze. The heat of Coriolanus above him, beneath him, around him and inside him is primal. It is something that has existed before time, and will exist long after it – the two of them trapped in this strange dance that can never ever end. No matter how deep the cut.

The joining is as fierce as it always is, the poison surges between them and creeps so deep that not a single knife could reach it. He loses track of himself, they lose all link to the world. There is the thud of a heartbeat, the spread of a hand, a link so vital that it can be felt as a bloody thrum just above the skin. Empires have fallen for this, and empires will fall again. It is more than love – it is wildfire, it is blood, it is something that has never been named and never will be. A thousand poets will struggle to capture the word, and be left with only ash in their mouths. It is a thing that they will never get rid of, as they roll in their bed of a thousand whispers.

( _Never_ …

It will last forever, and that’s the thing. They’re just not sure if they’re going to last with it.) 

After it is done Coriolanus rolls off, he remains still. They stare up at the ceiling for a long few moments, sweat cooling on their bodies. It takes a long few moments for him to realize that the great general has fallen asleep, is lying besides him as still as the grave that he once wanted to put him in. The only thing to do is to roll over, slowly – watch his waxen face and muscled chest and almost innocence that is so _almost_ perfect.

“I know I shouldn’t trust you,” he whispers, so low that even he can barely hear it, “but yet I can’t help myself.”

And Coriolanus, destroyer of nations and terror of Rome and melting horror of his every moment besides… Sleeps. Eyelashes fluttering, chest heaving, skin as pale as death against the dirty sheets of their bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Outboxed in the fiveacts meme. Title is from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot.


End file.
